Tag Archives: Rex Tillertson

Rex Tillerson is out at the State Department. Mike Pompeo is in. So is Stormy Daniels, waiting to tell her story on 60 Minutes. The White House’s email this morning was deafeningly silent about Tillerson’s firing, directing the public’s attention to the president’s visit to the border wall with Mexico today.

As a long time proponent of a foreign policy of respect for the sovereignty of other nations, the pursuit of peaceful solutions to international disputes, and global action on climate change, and a critic of crony capitalism, it is leaves me more than a little disturbed to find myself in the same camp with a former Exxon CEO, the FBI, the CIA, and Generals and Admirals of the U.S. military establishment who refuse to settle down in the White House cuckoo’s nest.

Rex Tillerson is out the day after publicly paying heed to America’s closest ally’s claim that the Russians are responsible for the poisonings in Britain. That the president and Tillerson disagreed on strategic matters is no secret. Nor is the allegation that the Secretary of State called his boss “a ___ moron,” an allegation Tillerson deflected but never denied. Why the president waited so long to fire him has been a head-scratcher explained perhaps by the respect Tillerson commands from Wall Street, multinational corporate leaders, global capitalist free trade proponents, and, yes, even moderate climate change action advocates. All have looked to the former Exxon CEO as one Trump cabinet member who a least understands complexity and respects measured responses and careful planning required before things like a meeting with Kim Jung-un.

The president often tweets after a stormy night. Perhaps the timing of the Tillerson firing less than a week before Stormy Daniels’ scheduled 60 Minutesinterview is an ill-considered attempt to circle the wagons around the cuckoo’s nest before Stormy and the Mueller investigation findings shut off the television in the White House bedroom.

Gordon C. Stewart

I've always liked quiet. And, like most people, I've experienced the world's madness. "Be Still! Departure from Collective Madness" (Wipf and Stock Publishers, Jan. 2017) distills 47 years of experiencing stillness and madness as a campus minister and Presbyterian pastor (IL, WI, NY, OH, and MN), poverty criminal law firm executive director, and social commentator. Our dog Barclay reminds me to calm down and be much more still than I would without him.